The work explores adolescence as a liminal state, between childhood and adulthood, between the feminine and the masculine and between innocence and a burgeoning self-identity. The focus is on the adolescents’ heightened states of mind.— Martine Fougeron

Martine Fougeron’s Teen Tribe is an intimate portrait of her sons and their friends in both New York and France. Fougeron began her series in 2005 when her two Franco-American sons were 13 and 14, and followed them for six years. She travels a fine line as mother, artist and observer. This could be awkward for all involved, but ultimately she delivers honest portraits. We witness everyday life and the rites of passage found within it, often during startlingly intimate moments.

The gaze is telling in these pictures. The boys and their friends are figuring out who they are and who they want to become while staring out at the mother, the artist, and at us, the anonymous audience witnessing their metamorphoses from kids to young adults.— Jim CasperEditor's note: Martine Fougeron won first prize in the Single Image category, LensCulture Exposure Awards 2010, with the image, Teresa's Legs. Fougeron also presented her portfolios to international photography experts and to the public during LensCulture FotoFest Paris 2010. Her work is being exhibited in 2013 at The Gallery at Hermès in New York, and with the Christophe Guye Gallery during Paris Photo 2013. Her first monograph, Teen Tribe, will be published in 2013 by Steidl.Current exhibitions:

Cinematic, moody yet fresh: a European-wide art project which aims to celebrate the idea of the flâneur within the contemporary urban fabric of the continent. One of our highlights from the Hamburg Triennal of Photography.

Using the sea as a metaphor for the hazy future, these oneiric black-and-white images trace the untethered life of a military family and explore universal themes of belonging, of finding a place in the world.